Harry Potter and the Scroll of Echos
by Trent Darius
Summary: In his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter and his friends investigate several strange happenings. Meanwhile, fourth year Niddich Werewort and his friends conduct an investigation of their own. (First fic, please R/R!)


Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Hogwarts, and anything else from the books belong to J.K. Rowling. Everything that's not is mine. ^-^  
  
Author's Note: My first author's note... It's strange... never really called myself an author. x_x This is my first real attempt at a Harry Potter fanfiction. Expect at least one more revision. I know this chapter is short, but I just wanted to try writing for Harry before I began to write for everyone else. @_@! Make sense? Anyways, enjoy, and as always, any comments, questions, or suggestions are welcome.  
  
Chapter One: Presents and Parchment  
  
The Dursleys of 4 Privet Drive were normal. Extremely normal. They had a normal house, a normal car, and normal lives. Vernon Dursley had a normal job as a drill maker. Petunia Dursley, his wife, was a normal home maker. She did normal things such as tending their normal garden and making normal meals. Vernon and Petunia's son, Dudley Dursley, went to a normal school and did normal things that other 15 year olds did, such as playing computer games and watching television.  
The fourth resident of 4 Privet Drive was far from normal, however.  
Harry Potter, Petunia's nephew, was an orphan. He was left on the Dursley's doorstep when his parents were killed. He had a scar in the form of a lightning bolt on his forehead, black hair which couldn't be tamed by any comb or scissor, and glowing green eyes. Ten months out of the year, he attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; something the Dursleys didn't approve of, but couldn't help. However, Hogwarts was six months they did not have to deal with Harry, whom they all despised, so it was something they were willing to deal with.  
Harry's most recent year, his fourth year, at Hogwarts had been his worst yet. Winning the Triwizard Tournament had been off-set by the death of Cedric Diggory and Lord Voldemort's return to power.  
Some in the wizarding community still thought Voldemort's return was just rumor, but many still feared the name of the most evil and deadly Dark wizard since Grindelwald.  
Now that Harry's fourth year had ended, he returned to 4 Privet Drive to live with the Dursleys until September first, when his fifth year would begin. He had spent most of his time doing homework in secret, or studying enchanted books. These were like any normal wizarding books, except that they appeared to be Muggle classics- such as Through the Looking Glass- when examined by non-magic folk. This was a blessing, as the Dursleys only allowed Harry to stay the summer with them so long as he agreed to their "no funny stuff rule"; meaning he was not to so much as think about doing anything magical while in the house.  
"But homework isn't magical!" he argued with his Uncle Vernon, who cringed at the mention of the word 'magical.'  
"Your kind of freak homework is! I won't have any of it!" Uncle Vernon roared as he tossed Harry's books into the closet under the stairs.  
One week later, when Dudley stubbed his toe and thought he might have broken his foot, Harry slid down the stairs and retrieved his homework. Now that there was only a month left before he would be returning to school, Harry spent the days memorizing potion ingredients or reading fairly recent clippings from the Daily Prophet, the magical newspaper, which his good friend Ron Weasley sent to him every now and then.  
The night before Harry's birthday, he lay awake in bed. The Dursleys had gone to sleep many hours ago. Harry glanced at his electronic alarm clock, then to his owl's cage. Hedwig stood perched, smoothing her snow white feathers. She raised a claw to the cage and rattled it.  
"Ssshh, wouldn't want to wake the trolls," Harry whispered. He decided Hedwig must be as restless as him. Opening the door to her cage, she climbed onto his arm and he led her across the room to his window. A cool breeze filled the room as the window magically swung open. Harry stopped several feet from the window, his eyes narrowing.  
A repetitive sound, one Harry couldn't quite place, began to grow louder. Moments later, a group of owls flew through the window, the first few landing on his bed, and the rest remaining on the sill.  
"Wow... there sure are a lot of you... I wonder what..." Harry grinned, looking at his alarm clock as 11:59 became 12:00.  
"Happy Birthday to me," Harry told himself, smiling.  
He went over to the first owl, whom he recognized as Ron's own Pig. It had a rolled up piece of parchment attached to its claw. Harry carefully removed it, then unrolled it. He read the rhyme aloud:  
  
"The parchment you hold is enchanted indeed  
For it will answer any question whose answer you need.  
It is not all-knowing, I should tell you this now,  
but if it cannot find the answer it will tell you how.  
Begin the wondering! I bid you so long,  
and have a Happy Birthday, signed, your friend Ron."  
  
The black ink on the parchment slowly faded. Harry smiled, staring at the parchment for a bit before rolling it up and setting it down. The next owl, a brown and red feathered one with yellow eyes, had a small square box. Harry anxiously opened the box. There was a small folded piece of paper, which Harry quickly read:  
  
Harry,  
I thought you might need this. It's an enchanted picture frame. It secretly takes the picture of whomever steps in front of it and adds them to the back of the double-sided photograph. It's a useful tool to see who's been in your room while you're away. I let it take my picture before I sent it to you. Well, I'm quite busy with the book I'm reading; 'Muggles and Magic: 13 B.C. - 1934 A.D.' See you September first!  
With love,  
Hermione  
  
Harry placed the note next to Ron's parchment and pulled the picture frame out of the box. As far as anyone could tell- Muggle or magician- it was a regular picture frame with a non-moving picture of Hedwig in the frame. Harry flipped the frame over and removed its back. Sure enough, there was a magical moving picture of Hermione and a newly-added Harry, in his pajamas and all, on the other side. His smile growing wider, Harry set the frame down next to the note.  
Hagrid, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, gave Harry a small wooden box which contained magical monkeys. With a flick of the wand the tiny creatures would come to life. One owl held two notes; one from Sirius Black, Harry's Godfather, and another from Remus Lupin, one of Harry's former Professors. The final owl, which had grey feathers with hints of purple randomly placed on it, carried a gift each from Sirius and Remus. A small golden key on a necklace from Sirius, and a strange jade colored gem from Remus. Harry was positive these two items had some significance, but they weren't mentioned in either of the letters.  
"You two..." he mumbled, grinning.  
Harry's head darted to his door as a floor board in the hall gave a loud creak.  
"Thank you, all," Harry whispered, watching the owls quickly disappear from his room. He gathered his birthday presents and hid them under his bed. Setting his alarm clock, he rolled over onto his stomach and buried his head in his pillow. Hedwig flapped her wings a couple times.  
"G'night, Hedwig..." the boy mumbled, yawning before drifting off into a deep sleep. 


End file.
